Arts & Entertainment

Death Grips, a trio from Sacramento whose music is a well-fused combination of electronic, hip-hop and punk, have left the world confounded since their beginning.

Gathering experience from vocalist MC Ride’s time with hip-hop project, Fyre, with his brother and drummer Zach Hill’s experience from playing with a multitude of bands as well as his own, a math rock duo called Hella, Death Grips’ music matches the paranoid vocals that haunt each record.

From their major-label debut “The Money Store” in early 2012, the band has gathered a large fan base and a rather intriguing mythos to their career.

After the release of “The Money Store,” fans clamored at the fact they had already teased their next album, “Coming 2012: No Love.”

A few months passed before their supporters discovered some pretty interesting breadcrumbs leading them on a trail to what could possibly be “No Love.”

By searching the deep web via private browser Tor, fans discovered codes and cyphers that resulted in spelling out passwords and other URLs on the web.

On this hunt, they found that the album was now called “No Love Deep Web” and was to be released by Epic Records on Oct. 1, 2012.

Several conflicts later, the band released “No Love Deep Web” on a multitude of file sharing sites like The Pirate Bay at midnight on Oct. 1.

Rather than the initial cover art previously leaked, the album was now adorned with one of the band members’ genitals with the album title written on it in marker.

The antics didn’t stop there. Exactly 13 months, 13 days and 13 hours after the release of “No Love Deep Web,” Death Grips surprised fans by releasing their third album, “Government Plates.”

Its sound was different than previous releases in that it was more focused on electronic music than the typical hip-hop sound, and also featured a crudely recorded guitar part by actor Robert Pattinson.

In June 2014, the band released yet another album, “N***** on the Moon,” stating that it was the first disc of a double album called “The Powers That B.”

The disc’s eight tracks were mellow and featured “guest contributions” by Icelandic pop singer Bjork. Rather than actually feature her on the tracks, each track was based entirely on samples of the singer’s voice played by drummer Zach Hill with an electronic drum kit. Fans were polarized by its sound and were anxious to see what the next disc would hold.

In July 2014, the band posted on Facebook page an image of a note written on a napkin: Death Grips were “at their best” and were calling it quits. The note stated that “The Powers That B” was still to be released in late 2014, but after the band would be no more. Or so fans thought.

One December night, the song “Inanimate Sensation” was posted on the band’s YouTube page, and a notice said the album’s second half, “Jenny Death,” was now completed.

This left fans on Internet music boards to wonder when this disc would come out, shortened to three short yet important words: “Jenny Death when?”

The band even mocked the web users by releasing an instrumental album titled “Fashion Week,” whose track titles were the names of fake runways at a fashion show called “Runway J” and so forth, spelling out in its runway layout the exact same phrase.

“The Powers That B” was finally released March 24 and it immediately shows Death Grips at their best, just as the breakup napkin decreed.

From its opening track, “I Break Mirrors with My Face in the United States,” the album demonstrates the band is working at full speed and bringing back the sounds of their mixtape “Exmilitary” released in 2011.

One distinct difference the album displays is the prominence of a guitar in a few tracks, played expertly by Nick Reinhart, guitarist for the math rock band Tera Melos.

For some tracks, it complements the overall sound of vocalist Stefan “Ride” Burnett shouting and whispering while drummer Zach Hill imitates the sound of banging on trash cans, and sound manipulator Andy “Flatlander” Morin stretches and distorts samples from slot machines to soul classics.

If there were ever a time to end a band, it would be on a note like this.

But they aren’t done yet. On March 24, the band declared they were going on tour to promote “Powers.” Fans were both excited and uneasy of this because for one, this meant Death Grips hadn’t actually broken up, and also, the last time the band announced a tour, they were no-shows at every venue.

The most recent, the band broke up before embarking on a tour with industrial metal act Nine Inch Nails, infuriating both fans and Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor. The unease comes with great anticipation as every Death Grips fan eagerly anticipates the next step for Ride, Hill and Flatlander.

Given their exhaustive five-year history, fans and newcomers alike will wait anxiously and excitedly for what the next step—should they not break up following the tour—may hold for the Sacramento trio.

By searching the deep web via private browser Tor, fans discovered codes and cyphers that resulted in spelling out passwords and other URLs on the web.

On this hunt, they found that the album was now called “No Love Deep Web” and was to be released by Epic Records on Oct. 1, 2012.

Several conflicts later, the band released “No Love Deep Web” on a multitude of file sharing sites like The Pirate Bay at midnight on Oct. 1.

Rather than the initial cover art previously leaked, the album was now adorned with one of the band members’ genitals with the album title written on it in marker.

The antics didn’t stop there. Exactly 13 months, 13 days and 13 hours after the release of “No Love Deep Web,” Death Grips surprised fans by releasing their third album, “Government Plates.”

Its sound was different than previous releases in that it was more focused on electronic music than the typical hip-hop sound, and also featured a crudely recorded guitar part by actor Robert Pattinson.

In June 2014, the band released yet another album, “N***** on the Moon,” stating that it was the first disc of a double album called “The Powers That B.”

The disc’s eight tracks were mellow and featured “guest contributions” by Icelandic pop singer Bjork. Rather than actually feature her on the tracks, each track was based entirely on samples of the singer’s voice played by drummer Zach Hill with an electronic drum kit. Fans were polarized by its sound and were anxious to see what the next disc would hold.

In July 2014, the band posted on Facebook page an image of a note written on a napkin: Death Grips were “at their best” and were calling it quits. The note stated that “The Powers That B” was still to be released in late 2014, but after the band would be no more. Or so fans thought.

One December night, the song “Inanimate Sensation” was posted on the band’s YouTube page, and a notice said the album’s second half, “Jenny Death,” was now completed.

This left fans on Internet music boards to wonder when this disc would come out, shortened to three short yet important words: “Jenny Death when?”

The band even mocked the web users by releasing an instrumental album titled “Fashion Week,” whose track titles were the names of fake runways at a fashion show called “Runway J” and so forth, spelling out in its runway layout the exact same phrase.

“The Powers That B” was finally released March 24 and it immediately shows Death Grips at their best, just as the breakup napkin decreed.

From its opening track, “I Break Mirrors with My Face in the United States,” the album demonstrates the band is working at full speed and bringing back the sounds of their mixtape “Exmilitary” released in 2011.

One distinct difference the album displays is the prominence of a guitar in a few tracks, played expertly by Nick Reinhart, guitarist for the math rock band Tera Melos.

For some tracks, it complements the overall sound of vocalist Stefan “Ride” Burnett shouting and whispering while drummer Zach Hill imitates the sound of banging on trash cans, and sound manipulator Andy “Flatlander” Morin stretches and distorts samples from slot machines to soul classics.

If there were ever a time to end a band, it would be on a note like this.

But they aren’t done yet. On March 24, the band declared they were going on tour to promote “Powers.” Fans were both excited and uneasy of this because for one, this meant Death Grips hadn’t actually broken up, and also, the last time the band announced a tour, they were no-shows at every venue.

The most recent, the band broke up before embarking on a tour with industrial metal act Nine Inch Nails, infuriating both fans and Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor. The unease comes with great anticipation as every Death Grips fan eagerly anticipates the next step for Ride, Hill and Flatlander.

Given their exhaustive five-year history, fans and newcomers alike will wait anxiously and excitedly for what the next step—should they not break up following the tour—may hold for the Sacramento trio.